" Not wanting to be alone is not the same as being in love, not truly. "
Loneliness - it’s a state of being, it’s an emotion that all of us have felt at one point or another in our lives. And it’s usually dismissed by saying that we came into this world alone, we’ll leave it that way too, while that’s a conversation for a different time, we don’t have to live that way. It’s a confusing state to be in, especially if you don’t understand it because the isolation can be slow and crippling but by the time you realize what’s happening, you might just be all alone. And with today’s time where valuable relationships are rare sighting and flings are more common and contagious than the flu, it’s hard to differentiate between emotions especially when they’ve been made seem so similar by society, social media, and our warped understanding of reality. Not wanting to be alone is not the same as being in love, not truly. Infatuation isn’t the early stages of love or the beginning of your love story, even though novels, movies, and TV shows have made it seem otherwise. And it is true that love has no hard and fast formula but it is certainly much different than just wanting to be free of loneliness or mere infatuation. Infatuation could be considered similar to puppy love but it still is not love. Infatuation is short-lived, it burns bright but it burns out just as fast, it’s consuming and you don’t really see the person for what they are, and when the flaws do start becoming apparent you realize the reality and your version of that person was completely different. It seems all too easy in the start and then it crashes and burns; just as easily leaving everything in burnt smithereens.
"If loneliness is being surrounded by crippling darkness then love is a beam of light guiding you to happiness and out of the darkness."
Love isn’t easy, whether that’s easy to find or easy to keep, to be honest, it’s hard, it has heavenly highs and hellish lows. As cliché as it sounds love truly, is seeing the other at their worst and choosing to stay, knowing that the person is worth all the effort it might take or all the compromises you might have to make, love is waking up and feeling grateful to have that person in your life and continuing to choose them every single day. In our generation many fear being alone, some subconsciously while others more knowingly. It’s become a tendency to grasp at straws rather than being alone, we’d rather be with someone who isn’t good for us than just be alone until we’re pushed to a point where being alone seems like a vacation in comparison to being trapped by our fear and being with someone whose potentially toxic for us but by that time a lot of damage has been done, let that be mentally or physically or both. If loneliness is being surrounded by crippling darkness then love is a beam of light guiding you to happiness and out of the darkness. Love is a beautiful thing, it can teach you how to not only love yourself but also love another wholly and selflessly but that doesn’t come out of feelings of infatuation or just no longer wanting to be lonely. We’ve reached such a stage due to an odd combination of romanticizing things that are more toxic than healthy, peer pressure to be, “cool”, lack of meaningful relationships, and wanting to fit in. We’ve lost our way when it comes to love; once we believed in wholeheartedly committing to someone but it’s now changed to flings and hookup culture.
Love happens on its own, when you’re least expecting it perhaps even when you’ve given up on it when you love someone you care for them far more than you love them, their happiness is far more important than such trivial things, the emotion in its truest form is far purer than infatuation and far beyond the understanding of someone who just doesn’t want to be alone which is why those who haven’t felt love often mistake no longer wanting to be alone or an infatuation for it. Whereas they’re not even close to the real thing, not even a little bit.
Written By - Sukhkamal
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